


it's superficial

by megancrtr



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: A Moment in Time, Gen, like a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:38:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1224871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megancrtr/pseuds/megancrtr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The florescent lighting flickers, because nothing in the hospital is steady.</p><p>tag to 4.06: "Iron City"</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's superficial

The florescent lighting flickers, because nothing in the hospital is steady.  
  
The patients aren't steady. They're always muttering and mumbling and twittering and complaining and screaming.  
  
The staff isn't steady. They're always switching shifts, switching patients, switching bed pans, IVs, medicines.  
  
The visitors aren't steady. They're changing. Always changing. Here for a moment and then gone the next. The father and son duo next to Lip have left. They left half empty coffee cups. All of Lip's are empty. Another hour and Lip'll probably take those half empty ones. His knees jitter up and down.  
  
Their knees had knocked together when they'd sat down four seats away from him. Lip tried to ignore them. Tried to ignore the way the father dropped a hand onto his son's leg. Squeezed. The son looked at his father and let out a sigh. Smiled at his dad. And his dad smiled back.  
  
Lip shifts weight onto his left hip. Then his right. Refusing to be reminded of everything Frank's not. Of the time he saw Ian with Steve's dad. Of the time he heard about Ian and Kash. Lip draws a hand across his mouth, runs it through his hair, wonders if Frank's the reason Ian's gay. Gay and after everyone he shouldn't be. If Frank's the reason for Ian's inverted Oedipus complex. Slay the mother and fuck the father. And fuck, Lip wants a smoke right now. If he inhales hard enough, he can smell the nicotine on his clothing. He can remember exchanging a smoke Karen. He can remember her words and her kisses and her laughs and her lies. He can remember the fucked up fantasy of his. The retarded baby.  
  
That Liam might be like now. That Liam might be like now because Fiona fucked up. Because fucking Fi fucked up. Fucking. Fuck fuck fuck. He spreads the hand across his face and then drops it back onto his leg, leaning over the table in front of him, plastered with text. Textbooks. Notebooks.  
  
Lip can't leave.  
  
He has to be a steady presence here. Steady for Liam who might be retarded now. Lip has to be here. Be here when Liam wakes up, if Liam wakes up. Be here. Lip has to be here like he wasn't then.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Lip rolls a pencil between his teeth, pretending. It doesn't have the same effect. Doesn't slow his thoughts, mind -- His fingers tap against the edge of the textbook. Steady. Steady and in time to his heart.  
  
Taptaptap tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap taptaptaptap.  
  
His heart tries to keep up with his thoughts, leaping between his family, trying to tie them together. Trying to keep them together. Trying to bring them back together. Trying to remember how they're all connected.  
  
If he goes back just a year, Lip knows those connections. Knows how his life wrapped with Ian's wrapped with Debbie's and Carl's and Fiona's and Liam's and wrapped with his that wrapped with Debbie's that wrapped with Fiona's –

He doesn't know how they are a family anymore. Because he doesn't know Debbie's boy. Doesn't know Carl’s friends. Doesn't know Fiona's job. Doesn't know Ian's disease. He doesn't know.

He doesn't fucking know!  
  
Lip shifts the pencil to between his fingers. It's mechanical. Because no one in college uses regular pencils anymore. Because he'd snapped the wood ones one too many times. Because when he asks to borrow a pencil this is what he gets. Because when he reaches a hand into a bag no one's paying attention to, it's the first type that he pulls out.  
  
Lip pulls the notebook onto his lap, moving it off the textbook. The textbook that's making just enough sense that he's not rereading the same line. Because the textbook has to make sense. Because nothing else in his life is making sense at this moment. Because textbooks always make sense. Because textbooks are written in no-nonsense language. Because textbooks don't care about superfluous information. Because textbooks don't lie. Because…  
  
He's migrated four chairs.  
  
Half finished homeworks, half read papers and pages discarded in the first chair.

In the second he's dumped his backpack and the textbooks that he's darkly underlined in response to three highlighter colors.  
  
The second chair's also got the book he's reading for lit. He doesn't like it. Because it's boring. Because it's supposed to be a masterpiece. Because he's constantly playing whose life sucks more. His or the main character's? Currently, Lip is winning without even adding to the shitfest that's happening now. He doesn't even have to think hard. The professor lectured on the horrible life of the main character. The professor praised the fucked up scenarios the author created. The professor lauds the depiction of the devastating hardships, the imagination and realism of the author.  
  
And all Lip wants to do is laugh. Because the kid doesn't know a fucked up life. He doesn't understand pain. He doesn't know what it's like for a friend to be pregnant with her father's baby. Doesn't know a father's rage. Doesn't know hate. Doesn't know death. He doesn't know hardship.

He doesn't know.

It's a little funny. Because not even the book can capture the extra kind of fucked up that's the Gallagher's.  
  
The third chair has physics on it. He never had physics in high school. It wasn't in the curriculum, though Lip remembers a dusty book in the back of the room. It's the force of the book that keeps the now empty bag of chips from the vending machine flattened. He found the change for the food on the floor from walking. Walking when the sun was up.

He wouldn’t have lasted at MIT.  
  
In the fourth chair is him.  
  
In front of him is the table with more notebooks. With more textbooks.  
  
Then in the fifth chair there're his layers of clothing. Because it costs too much to buy a winter jacket. But he told everyone at school (the three people he talks to) that it's the style where he comes from. The coffee cups have been empty for a long time, but they still smell like coffee. Because he downed them too quickly. He didn't savor them. Sometimes he makes the mistake of raising one to his mouth, only to realize… He should put them out of arm's reach. He hasn't yet.  
  
He looks up at the, _Hey_.  
  
His reply comes out automatically. Because autopilot knows to kick in for moments like this. Because he should've been on autopilot with Debbie, but he wasn't. Because he learned from his mistake. He was thinking then and he shouldn't have and now she's not home. And not answering her phone. And missing. And now she's like Ian. And now she might-- Lip thanks Ron, who asks about Liam. But not by name. Because he doesn't know Liam's name.  
  
Lip tells him a lie about Liam coming home tomorrow. Because that's how autopilot is. Because he knows to mitigate the truth. Because it's easier to say. Because manual control would be too fucking hard right now.  
  
He accepts the bag from Ron. The book with his essay in it goes to the third chair. Right next to him. The chip bag crinkles a little more.  
  
The elevator doesn't close before he's grabbing the poetry textbook. He pulls out the essay, heart in throat. Thoughts suddenly elsewhere. But they shouldn't be. Because his brother's in the hospital. Because his little sister is missing. Because his brother is a sociopath. Because his brother is fucked up. Because his sister's in jail.  
  
B+  
  
He got a B+ and there's no excited rush of air out of him. There's just a twitch. A small twitch that might be a smile, because underneath the grade is _Good work_. Because underneath is _Keep it up!_  
  
When he looks up he can almost not place himself. He almost doesn't understand where he is. Because college is so different than home. Because there is so different from here.  
  
He glances around, and the smile dissolves, because _Good work. Keep it up!_ has nothing to do with the shit storm he's in. His hands are shaking a little.  
  
It's superficial.  
  
It's not really reality.  
  
It's only words on paper.  
  
It's not a brother in a hospital bed.  
  
It's not missing siblings and a sociopathic brother.  
  
It's not a drunken father who needs to come back home to keep Liam away from the government.  
  
It's not irresponsible Fiona crying on the line and asking Lip to apologize for her, for everything she’s fucked up.  
  
Fucked. Up.  
  
It's just a fantasy there. Where tests are on pieces of paper. Where work is bussing tables. Where thinking is rewriting someone else's words.  
  
The room is just so fucking big here. A fucking big, fucking empty waiting room. Where he can't fix anything. Can't control what happens next. Can't keep up the good work here, because it's all out of his hands.  
  
Can't keep up the good work at college, because he’s trying to tape together his shitty family.  
  
But he has to keep up the good work at college, because he needs to have control over something in his life. Because he needs to be able to do good work. Even if it doesn’t affect reality.


End file.
